Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to the field of network security techniques. In particular, various embodiments relate to providing various endpoint security management features based on information regarding the network environment of the client device.
Description of the Related Art
A challenge for network security management is keeping the network secure while allowing many different kinds of devices to connect to the network from inside or outside of the network. In a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environment, employees are allowed to use their personal mobile computing devices, for example, to access a company's network from anywhere. To protect the network from attacks and prevent leaking of sensitive information, a firewall is typically deployed to separate the Internet from the internal network. When a user device connects to the company's network from inside (which is referred as to “on-net” in the description), the firewall protects the user device by checking the data packets or contents transferred from/to the user device. When users connect to the company's network from outside through an external network, such as the Internet (which is referred as to “off-net” in the description), they typically do so via a virtual private network (VPN) that is established between the user device and a gateway of the company's network so that the communication between the user device and the company's network cannot be intercepted by a third party.
A client security application running on the user device is commonly used for protecting the user device from various attacks. As the user device may operate in different network environments, such as an on-net state and an off-net state, the user typically needs to change the configuration of the user device manually so that corresponding functions of the client security application may be launched. Therefore, there is a need for a convenient way to manage the endpoint security based on information regarding the network environment in which the user device is operating.